Talysh language

Talysh is a language spoken in the northern regions of the Iranian provinces of Gilan and Ardabil and the southern parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is classified as an Iranian language.

Talysh has two major mutually intelligible dialects — Northern (in Azerbaijan and Iran), and Southern (in Iran). Northern Talysh (the part in the Republic of Azerbaijan) was historically known as Talish-i Gushtasbi.

There are no statistical data on the numbers of Talysh-speakers, but estimates show their number to be a half million in Iran and one million in the Republic of Azerbaijan, bringing the total number of Talysh-speakers close to 1.5 million people.

The Republic of Azerbaijan government has also implemented a policy of forceful integration of all minorities, including Talysh, Tat, Kurds and Lezghins.^[1] Thomas De Waal writes:

“

Many people in the republic of Azerbaijan were forefully assimilated during the USSR era. Smaller indigineous Caucasian nationalities, such as Kurds, also complained of assimilation. In the 1920s, Azerbaijan's Kurds had their own region, known as Red Kurdistan, to the west of Nagorny Karabakh; in 1930, it was abolished and most Kurds were progressively recaterogized as Azerbaijani' '. A Kurdish leader estimates there that are currently as many as 200,000 Kurds in Azerbaijan, but official statistics record only abou 12,000.^[2]

”

[edit] Notes

^ Christina Bratt (EDT) Paulston, Donald Peckham, Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, Multilingual Matters. 1853594164, pg 106
^ Thomas De Waal,Black Garden, NYU Press, ISBN 978-0-8147-1945-9 pg 133

[edit] External links

Iranian Languages
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Extinct †

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